


Christmas at Baker Street (Part 1/2: John)

by orphan_account



Series: Christmas At Baker Street [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Merry Christmas!, sherlocksecretsanta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 21:50:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part 1 of my submission for BBC Sherlock Secret Santa on Tumblr. John's first Christmas post-Reichenbach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas at Baker Street (Part 1/2: John)

John misses the awkward apologies to strangers he doesn’t know for words that weren’t his own. He misses the snotty refusals of apparently sub-standard alcohol.

(‘ _Sainsburys_.’ John remembers telling his flatmate/comrade/friend plaintively once. 'I bought it from sodding _Sainsburys_.’)

He doesn’t miss the mince pies but a basket of them appear anyway, Mrs. Hudson telling him that they were on the doorstep that morning and that she emerged just in time to see a sleek, black, government car speeding around the corner and away. He doesn’t eat any of them. He has a sort of vague resolve to pelt them at the Diogenes doorman but when he gets downstairs, Mrs. Hudson has scoffed them all.

‘What is it, dear?’ she asks when he comes down. ‘I’m awfully fond of mince pies you know, although you’re supposed to be careful of your waist around the Christmas season. They remind me of…’

She goes off into telling a story about her youth, which she laughs about; she says she can feel it getting further and further away.

John’s childhood feels far away, although there aren’t so many years between now and then. His Christmas’s at his parents’ house consisted of getting up horrifically early until the age of fifteen (although if you mentioned it, then fifteen year old John Watson would thump you) and waking up Harry to scramble downstairs and start on the presents. Eventually their parents would come downstairs to join in, disheveled with hardly open eyes and make copious amounts of coffee on the kitchen stove.

When John had opened all his presents and he could hear the radio in the kitchen as his parents started on Christmas lunch, he would slip contentedly into a sleepy haze on the sofa until his father would check in on them and let him have a sip of his coffee (just sweet enough not to be bitter, just bitter enough not to be sweet) so he wouldn’t droop in his chair as his sister clamoured for a go at carving the goose.

He hasn’t touched the stuff since his father died. Tea is what he’s always preferred but in his early adult life he’d swig down a cup of black to get him through the hangover on Boxing Day. He hasn’t done that since he was twenty seven and his mother telephoned him to come back home for his father’s funeral.

Now he sits on the sofa, clutching his tea like a life line, cursing and getting up when Mrs. Hudson comes fussing down the stairs and he realizes the hot liquid has rushed over and scalded his fingers.

Black hair. Silent Night and Auld Lang Syne on a sharp, bloody irritating, beloved violin. The smell of rosin and cinnamon on his friend’s fingers.

_I don’t have friends. I just have one._

John groans and gets up, knocking the TV remote clattering to the floor and handing Mrs. Hudson her bags.

‘Now, I’ll be back tomorrow dear,’ she says. ‘Mind you don’t just sit here brooding. You could go see the duckrace on the Thames, or the Detective Inspector said he might pop round later.’

There is a pause. ‘You're right, Mrs. Hudson, I'm sure you’re quite right. Have a good time with your niece!’

In an unusual display of physical affection, she pinches his cheek briefly and leaves, taking her bags with her. For a moment, he seems to smell cinnamon wafting up from the sandwich shop below.

He is alone; the door swings shut behind her and a ghost plays a jaunty tune on the violin to the silence of its home.


End file.
